Society For Peoples Action and Rural Development in Himalayan Area Key Issues and
Operational Areas, Major Activiities & Achivements
Operational Districts: Almora
Operational States: UTTARAKHAND
AchieveMents: SPARDHA- Society for Peopleââ¬â¢s Action and Rural Development in Himalayan Area was formally registered on 19th November 1994 and initially began work in the field of collecting and marketing of Honey. Since the focus was on introduction of Honey production as an income generating activity, gradually the society began to marshal resources and skills to promote production of Honey in the region. It managed to acquire some land in the industrial area of Almora and constructed a building with its own resources giving enough space to open office and set up a Honey processing plant, which happens to be first of its kind in the entire Uttarakhand with processing capacity of 250 Kg honey per shift. It was designed by Mr Deep Chandra Bisht, the founder of the organization. Actually, he replicated the design, which he saw in Perth, Australia during his Navy days. He was so fascinated by the design that he was determined to replicate it in Almora.
Gradually, Society started giving training to the villagers especially women on bee keeping and has successfully trained thousands of people in the region. They are practicing bee keeping and producing honey which is significantly adding to their income leading to socio-economic development of the region. Now with the continuous efforts the society has diversified in different fields like formation and promotion of Self Help Groups, formation of Farmers clubs, formation of Joint Liability groups with the kind support of NABARD etc. Society has become partner of National Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development and for last 4-5 years has been conducting Entrepreneurship Skill Development Programmes based on different trades like computer hardware and software, Food Processing, Fruit Preservation, carpentry, Fashion Designing, Beautician and Cosmetology etc. Hundreds of unemployed people have been trained on such skills and as a result many of them have taken up entrepreneurship as their career option. Society is providing them help and guidance to set up their enterprise and is all set to coordinate with different departments for providing the potential entrepreneurs know how about schemes meant for self-employment/ entrepreneurship. It has well established links with Khadi Village and Industries Commission (KVIC), the nodal agency for Prime Minister Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP); District Industries Centre (DIC); Khadi and Village Industries Board and different nationalized banks.
Society has formed Farmer Clubs comprising progressive farmers of the different development blocks of district Almora, Uttarakhand, with the kind support from National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). Through farmer clubs many activities like rain water harvesting, organic farming, wild fire extinguishing, awareness programmes on soil health, personal hygiene, sanitation, garbage management and against child marriage, child abuse, sexual harassment of children, human trafficking, child labour etc are being taken up.
The society is determined to act on innovative ideas. The region was known for honey production in ancient time but the bees were reared in wall hives not in modern boxes. The Society always wants to preserve the traditional way of bee keeping, as it was developed over centuries keeping in view the climatic conditions of the region by the local people by trial and error method, and was most suitable. The society took-up a project for wall hives modification , under Ajeevika project in district Almora supported by IFAD .
